CNN hires RCP's Erin McPike

1/22/13 7:45 PM EST

"I’m thrilled to announce that Erin McPike will join CNN next week as a general assignment correspondent," CNN SVP and Washington bureau chief Sam Feist wrote in an email to staff tonight. "Erin comes to CNN from Real Clear Politics where she covered the 2012 presidential campaign. Erin has also worked as a political embed for NBC News and a political reporter for National Journal. Erin’s first day is Monday."

This is a big hire: During the 2012 presidential campaign, McPike was ubiquitous across the three major cable news outlets. There were times it seemed she'd appear on all three channels within the span of a few hours. This makes her work CNN's exclusively.

In addition to McPike's hire, Feist announced the promotion of Dana Bash to Chief Congressional Correspondent, effective immediately.

Feist also welcomed CNN's new Chief Washington Correspondent Jake Tapper, who started at the network today, and congratulated the entire staff on its coverage of yesterday's presidential inauguration.

"Our air looked absolutely magnificent from beginning to end – and it was clear that our coverage was far more ambitious than our competitors," he wrote. "We not only anchored from five separate locations, but our reporting and analysis was spectacular. As you saw in [EVP] Ken [Jautz]’s note, our viewers rewarded our efforts as CNN beat all of our cable news competition throughout Inauguration Day. Thank you for the very long hours and excellent work."

CNN bested all its cable competitors in Inauguration Day ratings, scoring 1.923 million total viewers in the day, 3.573 million total viewers in primetime, and 3.136 million viewers during President Obama's address, according to Nielsen numbers provided by CNN.

We'll have the full ratings breakdown for inauguration day as soon as Nielsen provides numbers for all the broadcast and cable networks.